


Sweet and Fair

by Laylah



Category: Eternal Poison
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Knight Cadets, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:00:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olifen is too pretty for the military, and there's no getting around it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet and Fair

Olifen is too pretty for the military, and there's no getting around it. In three days he's already bloodied the nose of a cadet who called him _fair maiden_, and dislocated the arm of another who tried to grab him in the baths. And those are only the most obvious; he can feel the others' eyes on him almost constantly, and he's heard some nasty speculation about his virtue. He'd expected joining the knights to challenge him, but not like this.

"I don't know if I can stand it," he confesses to Logue at supper, at week's end. Logue is two years older than Olifen, and this will likely be his last winter among the cadets.

"Truly?" he says, looking surprised. "You're better with a blade than anyone in your year."

"It's not the blade work that's troubling me!" Olifen retorts, and then flushes. Logue's a good hand's breadth taller than he is, broad-shouldered and solid, the sort of man who's probably never had to fend off attention like Olifen's been getting here.

He looks sympathetic, though, which Olifen can't decide whether to be angry about. "Everyone's interested in you, aren't they?" he says. He tears off a piece of his bread, wipes it through the gravy pooled on his plate. "That'll get better once you find someone, you know. Most of the others will back off."

Olifen stares at him. "You make it sound like this is normal."

Logue shrugs. "Most people pair up eventually," he says. "You have to do _something_ to let off tension, don't you?"

"And the church?" Olifen asks. He can't help it.

"Some of the guys argue about that," Logue says. "Whether the church really doesn't know, or if they turn a blind eye on purpose to prevent a scandal that would hurt the kingdom."

It seems hard to believe, somehow. Olifen glances around the mess, realizes that some of the older cadets are watching them. Perhaps they think Logue is propositioning him; perhaps they're waiting to see if Olifen will greet him with violence, too. "And you?" he hears himself saying. "Are you...paired up?"

"Not anymore," Logue says. "Riordan took his vows at Midsummer, and he's stationed on the border now." He sets down the heel of his bread and looks Olifen in the eye. "You want someone you can trust," he says. "Most of what you're getting now is guys testing you, to see what you're made of. Don't let them throw you. It doesn't have to be like that."

"Thanks," Olifen says, even if he's not so sure.

In the next week he sends three of the other cadets to the healers, and twice he needs their services himself. Once he has to flee the baths in a hurry to avoid interrupting one of his year-mates, on his knees in front of an older cadet and most certainly not praying. Once he wakes in the middle of the night and realizes he can hear hushed, breathy sounds from the other side of the dormitory, one man offering satisfaction to another. He excels in swordsmanship, but everything else about the knights' keep overwhelms him.

A little further into the autumn and he's learning to spot the more subtle signs that two of the cadets have come to an understanding. Logue is right; there's a difference between detached encounters, one man trying to get the better of another, and the real camaraderie of new shield-brothers. It's nothing of romance -- no poetry, no flowers, no trinkets exchanged before the tournament -- but that reassures Olifen rather than putting him off. He needs to find _someone_, if only to convince the others to leave him alone, but even for a man he trusted, he has no interest in being anyone's fair maiden.

There's really only one man he'd trust that much in any case.

It's a feast day when he finally finds the courage to ask. They've been given the afternoon off to celebrate the Goddess's bounty, but neither Olifen nor Logue have any spare coin to spend in town or much patience for idleness. This week has been given mostly to drills with the staff, a weapon neither of them particularly care for, and the sergeant's scorn has been withering -- reason enough to spend their afternoon in an empty practice salle, beating each other black and blue. And when they break for water and a chance to stretch out aching muscles, Olifen takes the chance -- they rarely get this much privacy -- to ask:

"Have you found someone else yet?"

Logue almost smiles, as he splashes cool water on his face. "I haven't," he says. "Friends that close aren't easily come by." It's heartening, Olifen thinks, that he would want to share that only with friends. "And you? Made your choice yet?"

Olifen looks away. "You make it sound as though I could have anyone in the corps."

"Looked in the glass lately?" Logue asks. "Not a lot of guys around here would turn down a chance to get someone like you in bed."

"I don't want to be anyone's trophy," Olifen says sharply. He breathes deep, wills himself calm. "Forgive me. I know you don't mean me any insult." When he looks up, Logue is watching him, waiting for what he hasn't yet said. "I want to...find out what it's like, at least."

"You're asking me?" Logue asks.

Olifen nods. "I am."

In the next moment he finds his back to the wall, Logue pinning him there -- the difference between them has never been so plain, the solid heat of muscle against all his bruises. "I've been hoping you would ask," Logue says, and takes his mouth.

The chaste kisses Olifen has traded with serving girls were nothing like this. Logue's tongue presses for entrance to his mouth without hesitation, and Olifen whimpers at the rough scrape of stubble. He doesn't mean to, any more than he means for his knees to buckle in the face of the onslaught, but Logue is relentless. How could he even hope to resist?

When Logue reaches between them and squeezes his prick roughly, the noise Olifen makes is better suited to a maiden than a knight. Heat floods his face, but his hips rock toward the touch helplessly. It seems everyone around him has been doing this constantly since he arrived, until he could scarcely think of anything else, and now --

Logue tugs impatiently at his belt and Olifen reaches down to help, to unbuckle it and unlace his trousers. The air feels cool for a moment against his bared skin, and then Logue's rough hand closes around him.

"Please," Olifen says. He's grown so needy he barely recognizes himself. "Logue --"

"It's all right," Logue says. "I'll make it good." And then _he_ sinks to his knees, licking his lips and leaning in to lap at the head of Olifen's prick. Olifen shudders, moans aloud when the wet heat of Logue's mouth surrounds him. He should keep his silence -- they may have the salle to themselves for now, but there could be others passing in the hall, and for them to hear him making such wanton sounds --

Logue pulls back and then takes him in again, deeper. Olifen looks down, watches the shaft of his prick disappear between Logue's lips, the sharp lines of Logue's cheekbones prominent above the stretched hollows of his cheeks. It feels _glorious_, being surrounded by that wetness, that warmth. Logue groans around his length, pushing him back against the wall with both hands on his hiips, and then shifts forward himself so he's pressed as close as he can get. He pulls back one more time, teasing at the crown of Olifen's prick with his tongue, and then pushes himself down on it even further -- too far, it must be; how can he stand it? -- until his lips are crushed against the golden thatch at Olifen's groin and the head of Olifen's prick is buried down his throat. He swallows hard, twice, three times, and Olifen can feel the way muscles clench around him each time. When Logue tries to pull back again, Olifen can't help reaching for him to try to keep him there -- it just feels so good. He pushes clumsily and Logue chokes, hands tightening hard on Olifen's hips.

"Sorry," Olifen manages, breathless. He forces himself to let go, but Logue doesn't draw back, even though he chokes again. The hurt and desperate sounds he makes pull Olifen's nerves tight as a bowstring, his body humming with need -- he shouldn't take such pleasure in his friend suffering for him, but the needy clutch of soft flesh around his prick overpowers him and he stiffens, spills helplessly down Logue's throat.

Logue coughs as he pulls back at last, and wipes his eyes with the heel of one hand before he looks up. His face is flushed, his lips swollen. "Well?" he says. "Not bad?"

He knows the answer perfectly well, from the tone of his voice, but Olifen obliges him anyway. "That was great," he says.

"Thought so," Logue says, smirking. He gets to his feet, and his closeness sends a little terrifying thrill down Olifen's spine. It must be his turn, now, to return the favor. He can't imagine Logue would be satisfied with only pleasing him.

There's noise from the corridor, though, the tread of footsteps and the clank of mail. "You should put that away," Logue says, glancing down, and Olifen hurries to fasten his trousers back up. "Can I come find you after lights out and finish this?"

Someone will be bound to notice, no matter how quiet they are, if Logue climbs into his bed tonight. Olifen's stomach flutters with nerves as he tries to find the courage to answer. The footsteps stop outside the door to their salle. He nods. "All right."

Logue smiles, slow and hungry. "I'll look forward to it."


End file.
